• ST.ANDREI RUBLEV: THE MAN & HIS ART
• THE LIFE OF ST. ANDREI RUBLEV
• ST. ANDREI RUBLEV & HIS EPOCH
• ST. SERJUS OF RADONEZH AND HIS MONASTERY
• THE ART OF ST. ANDREI RUBLEV
• SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES ABOUT ST. ANDREI RUBLEV'S ART

THE ART OF ST. ANDREI RUBLEV

The Icon of the Old Testament Trinity

The icon of the Old Testament Trinity is highly venerated icon and remains one of the best extant Russian icons. This symbolic representation of a Triune God speaks of unity in diversity and harmonious fellowship of love. Torn by internal conflicts, Russia of the 15th century needed to hear this message, as much as today's world.

The subject of the icon is based on the Biblical story about the visit by three Angels to the Prophet Abraham and his wife Sarah. According to the theological interpretations whose authors associated the Old Testament events with events of the New Testament, these Angels were the three Persons of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. Though revealing direct iconographic affinity with this kind of representations, the Trinity as painted by Rublev, has its own features which carry a new quality and a new content. In Rublev's icon we observe for the first time all the three Angels shown equal.
This icon alone conformed to the strict rules of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

Meantime, some historians of art believe that Rublev expressed in the icon the need for and benefit of love, of a union based on the trust of one individual in another. Whereas Rublev's Trinity is void of any noticeable energy of earthly life, of corporeality of forms and external manifestations of love, equally absent from it is that cold soaring of the spirit, so remote from humans. The image determines the subtle struck balance between soul and spirit, the corporeal and the imponderable, endless and immortal sojourn in the heavens. When speaking of Rublev's work, different authors describe the Trinity's Angels as quiet, gentle, anxious, sorrowful, and the mood permeating the icon as detached, meditative, contemplative, intimate.

Depicting the Trinity as an indivisible essence without beginning and without end, infinite and eternal, Rublev chose repetitive light and airy movement as the leitmotif of the composition. The Angels' attitudes and meaningful gestures, their inclinations are amazing in their dissimilarity while being almost identical, so that the icon leaves the clear impression of a seemingly many-voice talk.

(Credits: the text is loosely based on G.Vzdornov's article in Ref.4, pp.205-212. In some places, text was either changed or rearranged.)